Wednesday, March 7, 2007

My First Wikipedia Edit!

I learned of these laws, now abolished, from Stephanie Coontz's articles regarding common misconceptions of marital traditions. Until 1979, when Louisiana became the final American state to repeal them, these laws served to grant husbands final say in most familial matters of household and property, without any need for input from the wife, or even so much as her knowledge of his decisions. Coontz mentions the laws to point out that they, not our current system of relative gender equality within a marriage, are more "traditional" than what we commonly note as tradition, and we should thus be careful of demanding regressions to traditions--and furthermore realize that elements of marriage that changed in the past probably changed for good reasons, as changes that the institution is currently undergoing are probably for reasons just as valid that will benefit us just as greatly as such abolishments as those of Head and Master Laws.

I had trouble linking and citing my references, but I believe the Wikipedia editors went back and corrected them for me, as my errors have disappeared.

I also have trouble locating the entry because "head and master laws", "head and master," "'head and master' laws," and any prompt other than "'Head and Master' laws" (exact capitals, quotation marks, and all) takes me to a page that says no entry on the subject exists.

I'd love to figure out how to fix that (perhaps the Wiki editors will take care of that as well), but otherwise, I'm proud of my tiny addition to the Wikipedia world.